In the coming weeks and months, states, communities, and school districts face major deadlines as they consider which programs and services to support with their remaining American Rescue Plan dollars. School districts have until September 30, 2024, to allocate their Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund III dollars and until January 28, 2025, to spend those dollars. Meanwhile, states, localities, and Native nations have until December 30, 2024, to allocate their State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars and until December 31, 2026, to spend them. Many state and local governments and school districts have done tremendous work to invest their relief funds in programs for children and youth, as highlighted in our American Rescue Plan database and community profiles.

Here are some tips for how American Rescue Plan fund recipients can build on their initial investments and prepare as the allocation deadlines approach.

All Funding Recipients

• Consider tapping other federal programs and funding streams to provide the same or similar services currently supported with American Rescue Plan dollars. For example, school districts looking to maintain high-impact tutoring programs can apply for tutoring grants from the AmeriCorps program.

Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund III Recipients

• It is possible to apply for a 14-month liquidation extension through your state educational agency. However, this extension only applies to certain expenditures, including investments that support increasing daily student attendance; providing high-quality tutoring; and increasing access to before- and after-school learning, summer learning, and extended learning time. Districts cannot receive an extension for expenditures that pay for teacher salaries, recruitment bonuses, or bulk purchases of laptops or textbooks.
• Make bulk purchases of durable goods that your district can distribute to students over an indefinite period of time. School districts have used this strategy to help homeless and other students who struggle to meet basic needs outside of the classroom. These purchases can include prepaid bus passes and laundry cards, clothing, school supplies, toiletries, nonperishable food items, and more.

State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Recipients

On March 29, 2024, the Department of the Treasury released an updated version of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Frequently Asked Questions that included some additional flexibilities for fund recipients around obligations. Some of these flexibilities may inform creative approaches for obligating and expending funds. Under the updated rule, State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund recipients can now use their funding in the following ways:

• Use funds to pay for personnel costs for eligible positions through the end of 2026 as long as the positions being funded are established and filled prior to December 31, 2024. For example, according to the Department of the Treasury’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Obligation Interim Final Rule Tribal Government Fact Sheet, “funds may be used to cover such personnel costs if doing so would fall within the scope of an eligible use of [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds], such as payroll costs for employees overseeing an Elder Nutrition Program or overseeing an eligible affordable housing project.” This is an expansion of the original Obligation Interim Final Rule, which restricted use of funds for personnel costs to those positions directly responsible for reporting and compliance.
• Obligate funds by entering into certain interagency agreements. Below, are three examples relevant to states, Native nations, and localities from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Frequently Asked Questions:
  • State: “[A]n MOU between the Office of the Governor and the state department of education pursuant to which the Governor agrees to fund the department to carry out a summer program to address learning loss related to the pandemic through 2026, including the coverage of payroll for time spent on the program.”
  • Native nation: “If a Tribal council has made [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] available to the social services department to cover the operational costs of an elder care program through December 31, 2026, an agreement with the department under which the social services department agrees to perform and complete in a satisfactory and proper manner the scope of work specified in accordance with the [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] award terms and conditions.”
  • Locality: “If a county’s legislative body has made [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] revenue loss funds available to their housing agency for coverage of its operating costs through fiscal year 2026, an agreement with the county’s department of technology under which the housing agency procures IT services from the county’s department of technology.”
• Use funds to reorganize job positions originally created as part of an eligible project. Reorganization may look like promoting a position or replacing an employee in a position funded with State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. For example, according to the Department of the Treasury, “If an eligible project employs ten job training specialists on December 31, 2024, it is permissible for the recipient to use funds to cover payroll for one of those training specialists who is promoted to be a supervisor, so long as there are no more than ten positions covered through [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] in total.”
• Shift funds from one eligible project to another eligible project. For example, if a locality discovers it budgeted more funding than necessary for a given project it can reclassify the excess funds toward another project.

Visit the U.S. Department of the Treasury website for webinar recordings, guidance documents, and technical assistance about the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund program, such as the webinar about obligating funds.

Here are some tips for how advocates, community members, and policymakers can make the most of American Rescue Plan dollars.

Advocates and Community Members

Find out how much funding your community has spent and see how your community supported specific program and service areas. Every recipient of American Rescue Plan funding was required to publish a spending plan. You can find your community’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund plan on the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s website. Meanwhile, state spending plans for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds are available on the U.S. Department of Education’s website. School district plans for spending Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds should be publicly available through each state’s education agency; many districts also have them published on their respective local websites. Policy and advocacy organizations at the national, state, and local level also have been tracking American Rescue Plan spending. If you want to see greater public investments in projects focused on children and youth, contact your elected officials and let them know.

State, Native Nation, and Local Policymakers

Continue to engage with your community around American Rescue Plan funding and policy actions. This may mean making more information about reporting and project investments public or publishing a round up of American Rescue Plan spending as a news release. Communicating about American Rescue Plan funding and related policy decisions acknowledges how these projects have impacted the community and helps build trust through transparency. Additionally, if your community, state, or Native nation has obligated or spent all of its relief funding, it may be time to analyze the investments you made using American Rescue Plan dollars and identify ways to replace and sustain funding for the investments in children and youth that succeeded.

Whether you are an American Rescue Plan funding recipient, an advocate for children and youth, or a policymaker, you have an important role to play in creating more opportunities for children and their families. Even as American Rescue Plan deadlines loom, there still is plenty we can do to capitalize on the impact of this historic investment to create better opportunities for children and youth. Visit Children’s Funding Project’s American Rescue Plan resource collection to explore our resources and learn more about how you can support funding for kids!

Avy Osalvo is a former intern at Children’s Funding Project.